Claim:   Eating celery results in negative calories.

Status:   True.

Example:   [Collected on the Internet, 1999]

Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.

Origins:   Ours is a weight conscious society, obsessed with the chimera of physical perfection and frantic in its pursuit of the trim waistline. Yet ours is also an overfed society adrift in an endless sea of gastronomic temptation, and an under-exercised one in that our daily routines provide us with significantly less physical exertion than that of our ancestors. As a result, almost all of us — even those who at other times or in other places would have been worshipped as the epitome of perfect proportion — are constantly trying to shed a few pounds, are fighting with gritted teeth to maintain our weight at a set level, or are convinced we're hopelessly fat and unattractive.

The promise of a quick 'n' easy weight loss solution is a siren's call to us. We race from pillar to post looking for the magic pill or food or breathing exercise or magnetic belt that will melt those pounds away and strip inches from our measurements. It is for this reason that the promise of "negative calories" draws us like moths to a flame.

The calories in food are a measure of energy content. For something we eat to be a source of "negative calories," it must provide fewer of these units of energy than we expend in consuming it. Yet everything contains calories, so at first this concept appears impossible. Therefore, the hunt is on for ingestibles whose energy content is not released into our bodies because we humans lack the ability to break them down — it doesn't matter how many calories these goodies have, provided we can't extract them. Cellulose in plants is one such substance: although it contains a goodly amount of carbohydrates, they are packaged in a form we cannot digest, so we fail to absorb their calories.

Celery has about 6 calories per 8-inch stalk, making it a dieter's staple. Although it's loaded with latent energy, the amount we are capable of extracting from it is negligible thanks to the plant's cellulose composition. Its ingestion can result in negative calories, but it is a fallacy to believe that effect has to do with energy expended in chewing. Though chewing might feel like a somewhat strenuous activity, it burns about the same amount of energy as watching paint dry. It is the bodily energy devoted to the digestion of the green stalks that exhausts calories. A cold low-calorie drink would enhance the effect, because the liquid needs to be warmed to body temperature, an act that requires further expenditure of energy.

Yet as enticing as all this sounds, the dietary bankroll built by this approach would be very small, probably amounting to no more than a few dozen calories a day. In a world where it takes 3,500 calories to work off a single pound of fat, feasting on celery would make only the merest difference.

There have been those who have taken this tiny sliver of truth and used it to form the basis of what they tout as "negative calorie diets," proving once again that anything can form the core of a diet plan someone wants to sell to others, provided it contains a notion that so much as vaguely sounds like it might work and weds it to the promise of easy, quick, effortless, and pain-free weight loss.

But in defense of celery, we note that even if it doesn't contribute mightily to a caloric imbalance which serves to work waistline magic, those who are eating it aren't eating something else. Sometimes the key to a successful reducing plan is not so much the ingestion of "good" foods as it is the avoidance of "bad" ones. And it's hard to sneak a chocolate bar into a mouth that's busy chewing celery.

Celery serves one final purpose in the battle of the bulge: it's a symbol of dietary virtue and singleminded intent. Its presence in our refrigerators signals to all comers that we are serious about the weight loss plan this time around.

Barbara "lock, stalk, and barrel-chested" Mikkelson

Additional information:  

Celery Facts     (www.foodreference.com)

Last updated:   20 February 2007

Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2013 by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson.
This material may not be reproduced without permission.
snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.  

---

  Sources:

    Matthews, Robert.   "No Matter What You Eat, There's No Such Thing as a Zero Calorie Food."

    [London] Sunday Telegraph.   13 July 2003   (p. 29).

    Squires, Sally.   "The Lean Plate Clue; Positively Bunk."

    The Washington Post.   30 October 2001   (p. F3).

    Ursell, Amanda.   "Foods That Cause You to Lose Weight."

    [London] Sunday Times.   2 May 1999   (Features).

    Villiers, Sara.   "Slim Hopes for Those on a Losing Streak."

    The [Glasgow] Herald.   15 February 1995   (p. 17).